Are You Making The Biggest Mistake In Marketing?

Marketing. You love to hate it. Yet, you know without marketing your message will never get out. The problem is that marketing feels a little sleazy, especially to Creative Entrepreneurs. But of course, without sales the best ideas or greatest products are doomed to fail. Let us take a look at the biggest mistake in marketing. Don’t be surprised if you are doing it, too.

There is a book called the 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing published in 1994 that I recently read again. What struck me as I was reading the case studies of marketing successes is that many of the businesses have since closed. What conclusions is one to draw of how well these marketing laws work if the prime examples are no longer in business?

That’s when I had my Aha! moment. Each of those businesses made the biggest marketing mistake.

They kept doing what they had always done until it no longer worked.

Instead of figuring out why their methods stopped working, I expect they were doubling and tripling their efforts and their marketing spending. Direct mail used to work. Email used to work. Cold calling used to work. But everything evolves, including effective marketing strategies.

The second biggest mistake in marketing is to believe that your buyers want all the facts. True, there are some buyers who can’t make a decision until they are 100% confident it offers what they need. However, most people commit to a purchase because of intangible feelings that are associated with the product or service.

Is an iPhone better than a Samsung phone? Samsung makes a far superior product yet Apple can’t keep its phones on the shelves. From the personal computer, to the iPod, to the iPad, to the iPhone—Apple revolutionized how we use technology in our personal lives. Innovation used to be the norm for Apple, yet lately it seems Apple is lacking the groundbreaking products we have come to expect. Adding more features is not enough, and it certainly doesn’t feel all that innovative in comparison to what Apple has given us in the past.

Nevertheless, hardcore Apple fans still camp out overnight to claim the fame of being among the very first to hold the latest coveted cult product in their hands. Why? Because of how they feel when they hold it.

Telling people the facts about why your product is superior will not help you sell it. All you are doing is creating a comparison list between your product and your competition. Apple doesn’t do any of that; they focus on the feeling. Apple sells the idea of how much better our lives are when we share our memories, play our music, make movies, and are enjoying a creative free-spirited lifestyle.

What about your business? Can you tell me how you are making someone’s life better? How will a person feel about purchasing what you are selling?

Marketing is all about end results. Unfortunately, most of us get so caught up in the features and details and small ways that make us different from the other guys that we completely forget what we should be talking about.

When you figure out how this first— and most important—piece of the puzzle fits, you will suddenly recognize that marketing isn’t so hard after all. And if you know your best fit customer, now you can really move that needle into the success zone.

At her lowest point, Beate Chelette was $135,000 in debt, a single mother, and forced to leave her home. Only 18 months later, she sold her image licensing business to Bill Gates in a multimillion dollar deal. Chelette is a nationally known ‘gender decoder’ who has appeared in over 60 radio shows, respected speaker, career coach, consummate creative entrepreneur, and author of Happy Woman Happy World. Beate is also the founder of The Women’s Code, a unique guide to women leadership and personal and career success that offers a new code of conduct for today’s business, private, and digital worlds. Determined to build a community of women supporting each other, she took her life-changing formula documented it all in a book Brian Tracy calls “an amazing handbook for every woman who wants health, happiness, love and success!”